Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hi! I had posted this in another section, but I figured it might be better to post this in the Support thread instead of the Metroid Prime 2: Echoes thread.

Well, this is frustrating. I've just upgraded my computer again, thinking that maybe I needed more power, and I end up with now a slightly functioning Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2. Undecided

All right, let's start from the specs:
-AMD Phenom 9500 Quad-Core 2.2 GHz Processor
-Asus M2N-SLI
-4GB Ram (2x 2GB Corsair Hyper-Linked RAM)
-2 TB (2x 1 TB Hitachi Hard Drive)
-eVGA GeForce GTX 285

I can run Crysis on High, play pretty much every game under the sun with no problems, yadda, yadda.

Now that the ground is lain, here's my problem.

If you want to go for "Can it play well", then yes, for the most part. There's a couple of areas where crashes occur, and sometimes the game brings up the "Pointer to non-existent area. Continue?" question that I press OK and then continue playing, but that's not my major problem.

My major problem is that I have all this power, and Dolphin still barely manages to achieve 20 FPS, sometimes dipping as low as 8 or 5 FPS. (Oh, there's also two other problems, one where the sound does not really work, such as cutting in and out at different points, and the menu music starts only when I'm not touching the control stick. DSP settings for that are at the bottom. The second problem is listed below the DSP settings.)

(The following are my Dolphin Settings. Every last one of them.)
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When I posted this, I was using 3661, but now I'm using Dolphin 3972. The settings are:

In Dolphin.exe (Not DolphinIL, because I don't know the differences.):

Config, under the General tab:

* Basic Settings: -Dual Core |ON|
* -Enable Idle Skipping |ON|
* -Enable Cheats |OFF|

Advanced Settings:
* -HLE the BIOS all the time |ON|
* -Enable the JIT dynarec |ON|
* -Lock threads to cores |ON|
* -Optimize Quantizers |ON|
* -LLE DSP on thread |ON|

Interface Settings:
* -Confirm on Stop |OFF|
* -Use Panic Handlers |ON|
* -Hide Cursor |OFF|
* -Show wiimote status |OFF|
* -Theme |KDE|
* -Game List Language |English|
* -Framelimit (experimental) |OFF|


Under the Gamecube tab, IPL is set to English, Slot A and B have Mem cards, SP1 is BBA, and Port 1 has a Standard Controller

Under Plugins:

* Graphics: Dolphin OpenGL
* DSP: Dolphin DSP-HLE Plugin
* Pad: Dolphin KB/X360pad
* Wiimote: Dolphin Wiimote Plugin


That's it for the Config page. Under the OpenGL Plugin Configuration page, I have it set up as:

General:

Basic Display Settings:

* Internal Resolution: (grayed out) 800x600
* -Native |ON|
* -2x |OFF|
* -Keep Aspect Ratio |4:3|
* -Window Mode |FULLSCREEN|


Advanced Display Settings:

* OSD Hotkeys |OFF|
* VSync (req. restart) |OFF|
* Use Real XFB |OFF|
* Render to main window |OFF|
* Auto scale (try to remove bord.) |ON|


Enhancements:
Anisotropic filter: 2x
Antialias (MSAA): (off)
Force bi/trilinear filtering |OFF|
Post-processing shader: (off)

Then, under the Advanced page, I have it set up as:

Advanced

Info

* Overlay FPS |ON|
* Show shader compilation issues |grayed out, not available|
* Overlay some statistics |OFF|
* Overlay Blend Stats |OFF|
* Overlay Projection Stats |OFF|
* Show EFB Copy Regions |OFF|
* Overlay texture format |OFF|
* ------------The Centered option here is grayed out--------------


Rendering

* Enable Wireframe |OFF|
* Disable Material Lighting |OFF|
* Disable Texturing |OFF|
* Disable Destination Alpha Pass |OFF|
* Disable Fog |OFF|
* EFB Copy
* -Disable |OFF|
* -Copy to EFB to system RAM (real) |ON|
* -Copy EFB to GL texture (hack) |OFF|


Utilities

* Dump textures |OFF|
* Load Hires textures |OFF|
* Dump EFB Target |OFF|
* Dump Rendered Frames |OFF|
* Free Look |OFF|


Hacks
None

* Use Safe texture cache |ON|

That's it for the options. When I go to System Information, it says:
Dolphin Revision: 3972

CD/DVD Drive1: J:
CD/DVD Drive2: K:
CD/DVD Drive3: L:
CD/DVD Drive4: M:

Processor Information:
AuthenticAMD, 4 cores, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, 64-bit support

Plugin Information

Default GFX Plugin: Plugins/Plugin_VideoOGL.dll
Default DSP Plugin: Plugins/Plugin_DSP_HLE.dll
Default PAD Plugin: Plugins/Plugin_PadSimple.dll
Default WiiMote Plugin: Plugins/Plugin_Wiimote.dll

Current GFX Plugin: Plugins/Plugin_VideoOGL.dll
Current DSP Plugin: Plugins/Plugin_DSP_HLE.dll
Current PAD Plugin[0]: Plugins/Plugin_PadSimple.dll
Current PAD Plugin[1]: Plugins/Plugin_PadSimple.dll
Current PAD Plugin[2]: Plugins/Plugin_PadSimple.dll
Current PAD Plugin[3]: Plugins/Plugin_PadSimple.dll
Current WiiMote Plugin[0]: Plugins/Plugin_Wiimote.dll


Dolphin Settings

Always HLE Bios: True
Use Dynarec: True
Use Dual Core: True
DSP Thread: True
Skip Idle: True
Lock Threads: True
Use Dual Core: True
Default GCM:
DVD Root:
Optimize Quantizers: True
Enable Cheats: False
Selected Language: 0
Memcard A: ./User/GC/MemoryCardA.USA.raw
Memcard B: ./User/GC/MemoryCardB.USA.raw
Slot A: 1
Slot B: 2
Serial Port 1: 6
Run Compare Server: False
Run Compare Client: False
TLB Hack: False
Frame Limit: 0
[Wii]Widescreen: False
[Wii]Progressive Scan: True

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So, with all this information, can someone tell me why my emulation is running so slow on such a fast computer?

Please and thank you!

As for the music, my settings are:

DSP:

* -Enable HLE Audio |ON|
* -Enable DTK Music |ON|
* -Enable Other Audio (Throttle) |ON|
* -Audio Backend |DSound ON, OpenAL OFF, NullSound OFF|
* -Volume 75%
* -Hacks
* ----Enable RE0 Audio Fix |ON|
* ----Disable Streaming Music |OFF|



Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

Did find another error, though I am uncertain if it's related to the first.

While playing through the game slowly, I found out that the game gives me the error: "The Game wants to go to memory card manager. BIOS is being HLE: d - so we can't do that." when I face off against the Warrior Ings/Space Jumper Ings. For some reason, the ranged attack that they use (it looks like a warp that focuses a light beam on a certain point) causes the game to freeze. Any idea what would cause that, too? I'm wondering if this has to do with the TLB Hack saying that it's off under system information, but I'm not certain.

Now, for all of these problems, I can throw more raw power and items like that at the problem (Planning on buying a second GTX 285 anyway, but a RAM upgrade, power upgrade, and CPU upgrade aren't too far out of my budget. Only a couple of days worht of work, probably), but I'm really don't think I should need to. This should be plenty of power, correct?

Found another problem. When I load MP3: Corruption, I get an off-yellow tinge over the entire screen, and the buttons don't work on my controller. Any idea why that is happening?

Please help!

Edit: Also, more info on the visual "The Game wants to go to memory card manager. BIOS is being HLE: d - so we can't do that." line. It occurs during the Jump Guardian boss battle, and when fighting the Warrior Ings. They have a ranged attack that has a heavy EFB need (The "Show EFB Copy Regions" makes the attack light up like a Christmas tree), which appears like a spinning, white whirlpool/mirage effect. The attack then shoots a beam (a cylinder) of whitish textures. The screen then freezes, FPS drop to 0, VPS jump to 58-60, and about 20 seconds later, it gives me that error.

I really need assistance with this. I'm at a complete loss on what to do, and I might as well stop using Dolphin altogether if I can't even play one game on it. MP1 is slow in the large rooms, MP2 has the aforementioned errors, and MP3 has a yellowish tinge to everything. Even SSBM is incredibly slow...

Bump.

Could ANYONE help me on this? Or is this a problem with my computer?

I also would appreciate it if someone could tell me if there are any specific sound drivers (CMedia, for example) that work better with Dolphin than others.

Please help!

all gamecube games have tlb memory so for any gamecube game you should always enable tlb hack...this should get rid of any unwanted memory error messages...and the pointer messages too..not sure..

True... :/ It's annoying, but that doesn't seem to fix the problem. I'm confused and frustrated by this.

you should have gotten a fast dual core instead. A quad core has no benifit in dolphin since it can only use 2 cores. and a 2.2ghz cpu is really slow. You need to overclock it. A 3ghz cpu won't always get full speed

(09-03-2009, 12:13 PM)cmccmc Wrote: [ -> ]you should have gotten a fast dual core instead. A quad core has no benifit in dolphin since it can only use 2 cores. and a 2.2ghz cpu is really slow. You need to overclock it. A 3ghz cpu won't always get full speed

It's not that much of a difference. I've got a 9950BE, OC @ 3.2GHz (yep Kane, it went up!) The cutscenes are the main issue (and the scanning visor is broken in mine). In MP1, the opening scene hits 7FPS, avg 15. Also, that audio issue seems.... odd. I have nearly the opposite of Kane, with the audio fine when moving, and the FPS at more than 30. Also, I have no issues with the menu.

My main issues is.... I have no controller.

I've got a slightly better system,
-AMD Phenom 9950 BE OC'd 3.2GHz
-MSI K9A2 V2
-4GB RAM, Dual Channel DDR2, (2xCorsair Dominator; 2xKingston)
-1.5TB (1TB Seagate; 500GB WD; 40GB toshibia something)
-VisionTek ATI Radeon HD 4850 OC'd (700MHz/1100MHz)
-Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
-22" iZ3D Monitor
-Logitech Z-5500

I think part of our split issues is the NVIDIA/ATI difference. As to the sound, I've no idea if the external sound card helps. I know Kane's using the built-in, but if I remember correctly, that's a Realtek, and they aren't exactly bad.

You would overclock it even higher, Groggo.

Yeah, Groggo and I are both having difficulties getting it to play well.

As for me, I'm around the Sanctuary section, so the game is going well for me, if still taking 7 hours to get past one level.

I've kind of given up on it for the most part. I'm going to try OCing the processor a bit, but I don't see that doing much.

in mp2 switch the efb copy to RAM and the visor should work...might cause minor slowdowns tho

(09-09-2009, 11:57 PM)hansenderek Wrote: [ -> ]in mp2 switch the efb copy to RAM and the visor should work...might cause minor slowdowns tho

..."minor slowdowns." Well, the visor works in MP1 (MP2 still has issues, the visor outline is there, but nothing is displayed just white) but at the sacrifice of playability. FPS down to 16, sound nearly non-existent.